I've had a possum eat all of the bait in this trap 3 nights in a row without setting it off. I captured it on a video camera and he was in the trap eating the bait for 5 hours and never triggered the door release. I've tried placing the bait on the trigger, behind the trigger and under the trigger but nothing has worked. Perhaps the possum isn't large enough to set it off but I have no confidence in this trap and am going to try to return it.

I read reviews from various live traps and decided on a Duke. The first one arrived damaged in shipping and does not reflect the quality of the trap. It must have fallen off a dock because two dozen spot welds were busted out on the dropped end. The first vendor took it back without any issues. I still purchased from a second vendor because I did not want to end up with the same exact unit again.

We had a large number of hens killed by possum last year and being in a rural area there are a lot of possum, racoon and even skunk. I have not bagged a skunk yet and don't hope to. Canned cat food from Aldi is about 3/$1 and I use about 1/3 can per trapping. So far it has caught 5 animals out of 6 tries. One time it falsely tripped but probably not due to the design of the trap. Could have been my dog. She will try to eat anything!

As others have reviewed, this Duke live trap works better than I expected from a trap. Greatly successful so far.

Other thoughts:
1. The HD X-Large Duke is powder coated thin wire but has a ton of spot welds to make a strong cage. It would be nice if it used stainless wire as this thing will be outside for the life of the product and will eventually rust in places. It is heavy enough with an animal bouncing around so a heavier gauge trap would make it difficult to keep away from you while carrying it.

2. I will make a heavy cloth barrier like vinyl that will drop over the fold-down handle so it better protects the handle area. There is a metal plate under the handle but doesn't seem large enough to exclude the possibility of getting scratched if anything reached through the top of the cage. It would add a little more protection and could drape over the side next to me so I could lean it against me instead of being so over extended to keep it away from my leg while carrying critters.

3. I am going to put a skid plate under the back end so it can be drug across grass and tie a rope off in case I bag a skunk. Better to have a little distance between me and a striped black and white cat. Tying a light weight string to both "O-ring" door locks makes it easy to pull them up and release things without needing to be so close to the cage. Otherwise your face is close to where an unhappy critter will be exiting.

4. As other have reviewed, I wired the food access hatch closed to keep anything from crawling back out. It makes it a bit of a challenge to get a can of cat food beyond the trip plate without dumping the bait but a little patience with that is better than burying dead chickens.

I use live traps a lot. I've three different sizes used to catch opossums around my chicken pen. Two Havaharts and this Duke. The Dukes isn't near as effective as compared to the Havaharts.
The problem is the trigger with Dukes as it is difficult to trip. I've had many baits stolen from this trap. I've yet to catch one animal in the Duke. Meanwhile the others catch at least one possum weekly. I won't purchase another Duke trap.

Nicely constructed it captured my dog the first 5 min it was out she is 25 pounds ....After that she stayed clear ......lol
it taped the stray cat i was after easily and easy release just flip over

This trap is amazing and worth the money. We've had different ones in the past and didn't hold up like this one. We set the first night and caught a big bore coon. He thrashed around it and was digging trying to get out nothing very well constructed. The only thing I can see that could use improvement is the bat door is pretty small could be bigger so ppl with big hands. Big hand ppl could have trouble using the bat door.